THE MENACE TO BRITISH TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 149, 27 June 1898, Page 8

THE MENACE TO BRITISH TRADE.

(To the Editor.) : : Sir,—ln last Thursday's 'Star yon gave under this heading an extract from an English magazine. It sW how trade is being transferred slowly but surely from the mines and -work shops of England to those of G er " many, Prance and America. It is an. parently intended as a warnin» to English workmen that to escapeltA, they must work harder and take to wages. That is indeed the 'moral' whenever the 'foreign competition' scarecrow is trotted out for, theieiicatiort of the 'working man.' AM should the 'turnip and tallow candle1 bogey of German competition pror«, insufficient' to scare them into sub-; mission, they are threatened with "tit 'yellow agony' of the East and its mysterious millions of rice-eatin» Mongolians, who are quietly watchin« their chance to 'spiffiicate' the British workman. It is really comical to watch the great English nation, frightened into fits by the idea it it will die if it cannot continue to undersell all other nations to the end of the world! If that should really b« the final test and condition, of; ottr national existence the sooner annihilation comes the better, '7acuui)i"an3' the serene blue will be much handsomer —easier too, for most of us.'

But, seriously, since we are so bent on supplying the wants of other people, instead of our own, and'hara placed our political salvation -in'iaaking England the general smithy1 "and ash heap of the world, let us looks little at the conditions under^wilch we labour and see \yhether.theyicannot be eased "a bit. .Jhe British "ml* man is threatened with extinction.ii he does not produce cheaper goods. Now, the price at which he can produce depends absolutely on tlie/price he pays for his raw material. Take, for instance, coal and iron. A Canard liner on one trip from Liverpool to New York and back consumes '4,125 tons of coal, and for permission to dig this out of the bowels, of the earth, with sweat and grime and risk of life and limb, labour has to pay a royalty of £206 5/ (which is more than the wages for the trip; for the entire crew from captain to cabin boj-) to a landlord who does absolutely nothing in return. One blastfurnace produces in a week 600, tons .of pig iron; on that quantity the landlord's royalty amounts to ■ £201: while the total wages to the actual workers, managers, engineers and all, are but £ 95. Thus on the two. main items on which, the prosperity of the great national smithy depends .more than half the energy of the-workers is wasted in satisfying the claims of those who are merely hindrances to production. a ' If, as Adam Smith said, 'the produce of labour is the natural recompense or wages of labour ' is it not time to inquire why more than half ,the pipduce goes to those who do no labour at all? Is there no room for economy in this direction?—l am, Sir, for u» National Single Tax League, • F. M. KIXG, Hon.. Sec,